Day 1 - Issue 15

01 March

Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

It is good to know, especially as the years add up, that God takes a keen interest in our anatomy. Jesus declared that every hair upon our head is counted and known by God. We are God’s creation, our bodies have been carefully crafted and every body part is able to find alignment with God’s higher purpose.

As we enter a New Year, it is remarkable to note that, it is our tears that are treasured by God above all else. Every one of my tears are captured and stored in a bottle, as testimony to real and imagined pain encountered throughout my life.

I grew up in a household in which I grasped that tears, especially in a man, are a sign of weakness. Best to suppress those emotions that felt like the only expression they wanted was through small rivulets running down each side of my face. Even in recent days my mum will say, ‘Tears don’t achieve anything, tears just make one more upset’.

I first experienced sobbing tears as we finally came to terms with our childlessness. I had been strong, not because I needed to be but because I just thought I ought to be; social conditioning or something. One evening out of the blue the full weight of our condition hit me like a train. I crumpled into the arms of a friend and literally sobbed for a full ten minutes. Incapable of speech, something deep within flowed out of my being with those tears. Some scientists claim that such tears carry stress hormones from the body. Maybe that’s why such sobbing was followed by so strong a sense of peace and wellbeing.

What intrigues me is that God captures and stores every one of those tears, for God’s compassionate heart is move by our pain and distress. He makes himself available, even when we fail to find him and the comfort he offers. He notes the traumas in our lives and keeps a record. Often such traumas become our spiritual growth spurts, once we choose to search for God in the debris of disillusionment.

QUESTION: Is crying something you allow yourself?

PRAYER: Loving Father, at the start of another year, I’m so thankful I don’t need to pretend with you and that you comfort those who mourn and weep.